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Flint Michigan: Accident Or Conspiracy?
Is the water crisis in Flint Michigan a horrible accident, or an intentional conspiracy? Inquiring minds are demanding to know.
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Many residents of the small, industrial city near Detroit are beginning to compare the situation in Flint to that of the levee breaks in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina — and not just because of the cataclysmic end result. In fact, residents are beginning to wonder aloud if there’s more going on here than meets the eye.
Flint Michigan is a city of predominately African-American residents — just like New Orleans. Its residents are also poor and living below the poverty line — just like New Orleans. This makes some believe that the water crisis is the perfect recipe for change and the perfect storm to flush the “undesirables” out.
Flint City Councilman Wantwaz Davis believes developers want to seize Flint from a mostly poor, minority city of 90,000 and convert it into a wealthy college town. “What happened when people didn’t leave fast enough? What did they do? They tainted our water,” he said.
Interestingly, his conspiracy beliefs are not totally unfounded.
The FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General, and the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division are all conducting a criminal investigation into the legal failures of the water crisis. The investigation stems from new information that Flint’s mandated former Emergency City Manager Darnell Earley, as well as other officials were aware of the dangerous lead levels in the water and the possible risk for Legionnaires disease almost a year ago, but did nothing about it. They also avoided Flint drinking water and bought bottled water for themselves — long before alerting residents to a health scare and all the while publicly insisting that Flint’s water was safe to drink.
That’s only the beginning.
On Friday, Liane Shekter Smith, who led the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (known as the MDEQ) assistance unit, was fired after a disciplinary conference. Her firing followed the resignations in December of MDEQ director Dan Wyant, as well as chief spokesman Brad Wurfel, who were each criticized for failing to recognize the scope of the crisis and for belittling those who attempted to raise alarms. A 4th employee, who worked under Ms. Shekter Smith, was suspended. Additionally, former Emergency Manager Darnell Earley is being called for a deposition before the U.S. Congress on February 25th.
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It’s not difficult for anyone to connect the dots and assume where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Why would city officials allow deadly levels of lead-filled water to flow into the homes of its citizens?? Is it possible officials have an ulterior motive and want the current residents out??
Flint Michigan residents are currently being provided with truckloads of bottled water to drink. Singer Aretha Franklin (who lives in Detroit) also stepped in to house several families at hotels about 30 minutes outside of Flint. However, these are merely temporary solutions to an extremely long-term problem. Officials estimate it will take 15 years to replace the now corroded pipes throughout the city to make the water useable again. However, residents simply cannot spend the next 15 years consuming 16 ounce bottles of water. Further, it’s impossible to use bottled water to bathe, cook, wash dishes, do laundry, water grass/plants and more for the next decade and a half. Locked between a rock and a hard place, what can the people of Flint do?
Most residents are desperate to leave, but few see a possible way to just pick up and move. With little hope that they will be able to sell, homeowners are left with the unthinkable option of simply abandoning their homes and running away. Renters worry about the expense of moving, finding jobs and the difficulties of picking up and starting over in a new place. Still, with a 15 year repair plan, residents are left with little choice.
Eventually, the federal government will almost certainly be forced to step in, condemn the city and relocate residents the same way New Orleans residents were relocated following Katrina. Except, conspiracy theorists believe that is exactly what local and state officials want to happen. The thinking is, if all the black and poor people are sent elsewhere, Flint can be repaired, rebuilt and then repurposed — possibly for the affluent, or possibly for the purposes of fracking.
According to attorney and Flint resident Alec Gibbs, he believes the water crisis is a calculated plot by Gov. Snyder and the Republicans.
“In Flint, the Emergency Manager pushed through massive new construction of a new pipeline, one that an independent audit report commissioned by the state treasury argued against,” Gibbs said. “This pipeline just happens to run through an area of Michigan targeted for fracking, which requires significant diversion of water, and you know who is financing it? JP Morgan and UBS, the two financial firms most associated with municipal securities fraud.” He added that proponents had to get a conflict of interest waiver from the City of Flint’s Emergency Manager in order to assist with the deal. The manager gladly obliged. Hmmm…
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“Are you really trying to help me out or are you trying to run me away?” Roscoe Bond, a 59-year-old auto worker at the nearby GM plant and life-long Flint resident asked rhetorically. Needless to say, he’s not alone in his suspicions.
The residents of Flint Michigan are in a state of crisis. With water as a necessity to their survival and with a solution seemingly 15 years away, their only option seems to be to abandon their properties and move away.
With this in mind, are the officials of Flint Michigan only guilty of making a grave mistake? Are the events of Flint an unfortunate accident? Or is the tainted water a purposeful conspiracy created to advance a sinister agenda?
TAKE OUR POLL:
Thank you for this article DJ. I had a thought in the back of my mind that maybe something was up here. Now that I read some of what the residents were saying and looked into it further, I think there could be something there. The fracking thing sounds real possible. Government has done this type of thing before and it damn sure happened in New Orleans so why couldn't it be in Flint too?